


Wait and See

by itstartswith_aardvark



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, M/M, More Fluff, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-10
Updated: 2016-08-10
Packaged: 2018-08-07 21:18:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7730104
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itstartswith_aardvark/pseuds/itstartswith_aardvark
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>SamSteve Week Day 3: Soulmates AU</p>
<p>“You get your mark when you turn eighteen, or sometimes it can come later or not at all.”</p>
<p>“Will I have one?” She smiled and touched his cheek.</p>
<p>“You’ll just have to wait and see.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wait and See

For as long as Sam can remember the marks made him curious. Where did they come from? Why did they look like they did? He remembers asking his mom about it one night when he was little as she tucked him into bed. 

“Well,” she had started, sitting down on his bed, his nightlight throwing shadows across her face. “You get your mark when you turn eighteen, or sometimes it can come later or not at all.”

“Will I have one?” She smiled and touched his cheek.

“You’ll just have to wait and see.”

“What are they for?” She made the face she made when she was choosing her words carefully.

“They help you find your soulmate. The person you’re meant to love for the rest of your life.”

“How?”

“Your mark is a half a picture or a shape, everyone’s is different. When you meet your soulmate nothing really happens, but the longer you spend with them the more the edges start to fade. And then, when you realize you love each other, your marks show up on each other and make one picture.” She rolled up her sleeve at the elbow and showed him hers; one half with bold curved lines with dots and swirls radiating from the center, and the other half squares and jagged lines arranged in sharp angles.

“When did you get yours?”

“I was nineteen. I was so scared I wouldn’t get one until one day it just popped up.”

“What happens if you don’t get one? Or if you love someone and their mark doesn’t show up on you? Or if someone you don’t love has your mark? Or-”

“Okay, that’s enough questions for tonight,” she had blurted and kissed him goodnight. From that night on he had wondered what his would be, imagined who his soulmate was and what theirs would be. He always secretly hoped it would be the girl that sat next to him pre-algebra until he hit high school and he didn’t know if he hoped it would be her or her brother. By the time he actually got his mark he didn’t want either of them. He remembers waking up the morning of his eighteenth birthday and looking over himself head to toe, searching for anything new. His search had come up empty, and he spent the rest of the day sulking. His nineteenth and twentieth were the same way; no mark, no anything, only his mother’s words echoing in the back of his mind: _You’ll just have to wait and see._ But he was tired of waiting. Most of his friends had theirs and some had even found their matches and he was still markless and alone. Until one night when he notices a dark blur on his shoulder. He thinks it’s a bruise from where he fell out of bed the other night. A week passes and it only gets darker. He’s about to go see a doctor when he can just make out a shape – what shape he isn’t sure. The next few days are excruciating as he waits for it to fill in, and when it does he wishes it had just stayed a blur. It’s a gnarl of wavy lines and irregularly shaped dots. He has no idea what it is, but fortunately for him it’s easy enough to hide and he’s forgotten about it nearly as quickly as he realized it was there.

Steve had an entirely different experience. His mark bloomed in full just under his left collarbone, right over his heart on the exact morning of his eighteenth birthday. It looked like half a star with uneven lines flowing out from it and tiny dots peppered around it. He was so excited about it, until he swore up and down he loved the girl that lived next door and his mark never showed up on her. He was heartbroken, devastated. Then it was the girl whose locker was across from his. Same song, different verse. Those were his grade school years; unrequited love and a mark he found himself resenting more and more. The last one was the boy that was his roommate in college. He found his match in two weeks flat. After that he decided that his mark was a joke, he wasn’t meant to have one and whoever hands them out had made a mistake. Years pass and he doesn’t give it a second thought, even when one day it starts to look muddled. _Good,_ he thinks to himself. _Maybe it’ll go away._

* * *

“Would it kill you to go running a little later?”

“Would it kill you to go with me?”

“Probably.” Sam yawns and shuffles into the kitchen where- oh, joy- the coffeemaker hasn’t even started yet. He woke up at five when Steve left and again at six when he came back. He’s always up at the absolute asscrack of dawn, before that even, he’s up at the tailbone of dawn. And he slams the door on his way out and his way back in so that means Sam is, too. He complains but he really doesn’t mind. He’s always so happy when he gets back, he just doesn’t have it in him to be irritated when he’s beaming sunrays from that smile.

“If it’ll make you feel any better I’ll take you to breakfast.”

“There isn’t enough bacon in the world to give me back all the sleep you cost me but there’s no harm in trying.”

“You may want to dress light, it’s getting hot out there and it’s only six-thirty.” Steve tugs his shirt off over his head and he has to pretend to fiddle with the coffee maker to keep him from staring at that   
toned stomach. He doesn’t know how long he’s been doing it, but he knows how long he’s been trying not to. A couple months ago at a pool party he caught himself slack jawed in awe watching him come out of the pool, something he couldn’t rationalize without having a conversation with himself he was _not_ willing to have. So he just averts his eyes and hopes for the best.

“I’m gonna take a shower and then we’ll go.” He’s stepping out of his sweats on the way to the bathroom and he practically shoves his face into the coffee pot. It isn’t easy, but he manages.

 

Under the stream of hot water and shrouded in steam Steve’s troubles melt away. Most of them anyway. Something’s nagging his subconscious just under the surface, just far enough away to evade him. He should be happy; he just landed a great new job, he has a date with a girl he’s been flirting with for months, his hair is growing out. Something’s still wrong though, something unsettles him about the new developments in his life and it’s making tension build in his shoulders and neck. He turns and lets the hot water soothe them, only to find he’s used it all. He steps out and dries and dresses, an autonomous movement that he breezes through without thinking.

“I was starting to think you had drowned in there.”

“And skip out on watching you eat your weight in bacon? I don’t think so.”

 

The restaurant’s fairly empty and the waitress only comes by twice the whole time they’re there. He finishes his pancakes in record time and just watches Sam demolish the mound of bacon in his plate. The longer he studies the shape of his eyes and the curve of his nose the worse the unsettled feeling in his chest gets. Eventually he says something, anything to try and ease it.

“You know Tara, right?” 

“The girl that lives downstairs?” Sam eats a strip in one bite.

“Yeah. I finally asked her out.” He stops mid-chew.

“And?”

“We have a date tomorrow.” He swallows hard and, though he congratulates him, his eyes tell a different story. Steve doesn’t know it, but Sam’s got an unsettled feeling too, only this one’s an acid shade of green. He can’t help but think of the girl, Tara. Sure she’s pretty but she isn’t anything to write home about. She only wears her hair in ponytails and everything in her wardrobe has flowers on it somewhere. But he tells himself it’s none if his business and finishes his bacon. All of a sudden his shoulder starts to itch, so bad he checks to see if something bit him. Nothing is there, only his mark, as useless as ever.

They drive home with full bellies and soon Steve goes to work and he follows close behind. He hardly gets any work done between mulling over that Tara girl and his arm itching like a mosquito went to town on it. The longer he sits at his desk, unproductive, the longer he considers having that forbidden conversation with himself. He could only deny his jealousy for so long, and that threshold was quickly approaching. The question was why? He had lived with Steve forever and known him even longer, so why was this happening all of a sudden? He traces it back as far as he could remember. He first started to notice Steve, really notice him, his smile and the gleam in his eyes and the flutter in in chest every time they met his, a few months ago. But he’d never felt jealous until he heard about his date. That was around the same time his arm started to itch. Not just his arm, specifically the shoulder with his mark on it. He’s ripped from his line of thought by pain. The itching has morphed into pain. Searing, burning pain that takes his breath away and stops just as quickly as it came. He yanks his sleeve up to inspect the damage, expecting a red welt. When he sees what it is he wishes it were a welt or a cut or anything other than what it is. It’s Steve’s mark, joined to his own at the line cutting it in half. It forms a mess of lines and dots and makes no sense whatsoever but despite his fear he can’t help but know it looks right. The lady at the first aid station looks at him like he’s crazy when he asks for gauze but gives him some anyway. He convers his mark, he can’t let Steve see it, not now at least. Nobody really knows how the marks work, who knows? He could come home from his date with Tara with her mark and all this could be pointless. The ride home is terrifying, he has no idea what to do other than wait. _You’ll just have to wait and see._ He shuts door on his way in as quietly as possible and tries to sneak into his room before Steve sees him, but he’s in the kitchen and notices him before he can abscond. 

“If you’re hungry I made nachos. What happened to your arm?” _Damn, damn, damn._

“Oh, I cut it on a file cabinet, those things can get really jagged.” He makes a face but doesn’t question him and goes back to his nachos. He takes the opportunity to dart down the hall and into his room. Steve hears the door slam and notes how odd he’s acting. Then again, he hasn’t exactly been himself, either. He spent months working up the courage to ask this girl out and he just spent the last half hour sitting by the phone fighting with himself over whether or not to cancel. It’s not that he doesn’t want to, it’s just that the unsettled feeling gets unbearable whenever he does as much as think about it. He lays awake that night, hoping his phone will ring and someone on the other end will have some extraordinary reason for him to leave town right then and there and have to cancel his date. He can’t take it anymore and gets up a whole hour early to go running. He can hear Sam grumbling from all the way down the hall and he can’t help but smile. He has the day off so he runs farther than he normally does, and by the time he gets back Sam is long gone. There’s a message from Tara on the answering machine asking to move their date back an hour. For some reason he’s so relieved he has to sit down. There’s no reason for him to feel this way. Tara’s beautiful and funny and he’s lucky to have a date with her but…it doesn’t feel right at all. He spends the day half lost in thought and half cleaning. It always seems to clear his mind when something’s bothering him. He watches the clock tick away the minutes until there’s forty-five of them until he has to leave and he still hasn’t started getting ready. Sam comes through the door, winded and tired.

“It is so _hot_ out there,” he gasps.

“There’s some water in the fridge,” he says halfheartedly as he comes into the kitchen. Tendrils of cold air seep out and creep across the floor to caress his legs when Sam opens the door and pulls out the pitcher of water.

“Oh, you might want to be careful, I spilled some-”  
Sam lets out a yell and the next thing either of them know he’s slamming into the floor and cold water’s splashing everywhere. 

“Oil.” He finishes, sitting up and wiping his face with the bit of his shirt that didn’t get soaked. “I noticed.” What he doesn’t notice though, is the now wet gauze falling away from his arm and plopping silently onto the floor. Steve does, though. He sees it and doesn’t believe it at first. Sure, that’s Sam’s mark, he’s seen it a million times. But it’s different. It has its other half, and what’s strange is that it looks an awful lot like his. And then, like magic, the feeling lifts from his chest, and when it’s gone, he realizes that it’s just over his heart that feels the lightest. When he’s gotten up off the floor and wrung the water from the hem of his shirt he meets his eyes and knows that it’s over without even asking what he was gawking at. He tries to turn away but Steve’s stopping him and then he’s clutching at his chest and Sam starts to panic. If he gave him a heart attack he’d never be able to live with himself. But then he pulls his shirt collar to the side and there it is, plain as day. His mark, connected to Steve’s. He tries to force words out but none will form. He can only stand there, shocked. The only thing that pulls him from his stupor is the unexpected feeling of Steve’s lips on his and his soft blond hair under his fingertips. He’s breathless, consumed with more emotions than he ever thought possible. When they separate for air the words he wished would come out all those minutes ago finally surface.

“You should probably call Tara and cancel.”

 

That night they lay in the quiet dark, clinging to each other, still unable to believe the events they watched unfold. Steve sighs and rolls his shoulders and Sam pulls him closer. This is the best he’s felt in days, and he only anticipates feeling better from here.

“Steve?”

“Hmm?”

“What made you…I don’t know,”

“Realize I loved you? All I thought was that I didn’t have to go on the date with Tara or anyone else. I didn’t have to be in love all by myself anymore, because you loved me. That’s when I realized I loved you first.” Sam breathes out a laugh and sighs. If things this good came from being jealous then he’d be sure to make envy a virtue.

“You know what it looks like?” Steve starts suddenly.

“What looks like what?”

“Your mark. Well, our mark.”

“What?”

“A bird.” He’s seen his mark for as long as he’s had it and never once, even at its blurriest, has it resembled a bird to him.

“No it doesn’t, it’s never looked like a bird.”

“You know, they say your mark changes shape over the years.

“So you’re saying mine is turning into a bird?” Steve shrugs and presses a kiss to his neck.

“You’ll just have to wait and see.”

**Author's Note:**

> It's a lot of fun imagining what their marks would really look like. Sam's is very obviously a bird but he just doesn't see it. It wouldn't be the first thing he was oblivious to.


End file.
